The Air That I Breathe
by Tom Beaumont
Summary: Izzie's beast?  Awake.  GI.  Rated M for sexual themes and content.  COMPLETE.


**The Air That I Breathe**

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_**Tom Sez:** When I wrote this fic, there was much depression around us of the O'Stevens ship. Nasty spew all over the place, fear and concern and puzzlement about the future..._

_...I couldn't let it stand...I hadta do something to make us feel better..._

_And as usual...I got an idea...maybe you've seen it, but maybe you haven't...  
_

**Title:** The Air That I Breathe  
**Chapters:** 1/1  
**Rating:** M for sexual themes and content - parental discretion is STRONGLY advised  
**The Sizzle:** Izzie's beast? Awake. 

_Dedicated to the absolutely astonishing spirits who populate the BGL thread at FanForum (especially the ones who wanted - well, you'll see)...you know who you are, my friends...we do it all for the love of GA and G/I...  
**  
Once more into the breech, my disclaimers:** GA. Not mine. Don't sue._

* * *

Izzie lay naked in the warmth and comfort of George's bed and pondered the tingly-happy-nervous sensations that were dancing across her bare flesh while she waited for him to finally walk through the door. She wasn't a fan of the word 'aroused'. It sounded too - what? - precious, maybe, or clinical - to her ears. Too hoity-toity, as the silver-haired lady with the broken hip in 203 would say. 'Turned on'? Too Seventies-disco-hipster-wannabe. 'Excited'? Too vague, especially when she was thinking about what she was thinking about. She decided during her wait that she preferred 'horny'. Base as it was, that was a word Izzie Stevens could wrap her fantasies around. 

Mainly because it was apt. See, she had been remarkably horny from the moment she'd opened her eyes, and it didn't cool her passions at all to walk into the bathroom and see George in the shower. Granted, the glass was steamed and translucent, but simply seeing the outline of his naked body was almost too much for her. Plus he was singing, and he was louder than the squealy pipes, so he must not have heard the door open and close. What was that song?

"_I'm bringin' sexy back  
Them other boys don't know how to act!  
I think it's special what's behind your back.  
So turn around and I'll pick up the slack!_"

At "_Take 'em to the bridge!_" Izzie was halfway between giggling at the silliness of his over-blown performance, and sighing at the tickly sparks shooting through her. It was ridiculous to her albeit weakened sense of propiety that his goofiness was becoming not just endearing, but even intoxicating to her, and she wanted to ignore it, but she was already going down, slipping even further into the sinkhole that was her lust. And her beast had gained a thousand psychic pounds, coiled itself around her waist, and kept her from rising.

And Oblivious George wasn't helping...

_"Dirty babe... You see these shackles? Baby I'm your slave  
I'll let you whip if I misbehave!  
It's just that no one makes me feel this way"  
_  
George was obviously enjoying his naughtiness, and so was her beast. Such a bad, bad beast. She had an instinct to strip off her sleepwear and slip in behind him, but she tamped it down. It wasn't easy, and her fingertips were wanting to betray her, because they were straying at the elastic waistband of her pajama bottoms, but she succeeded.

The water shut off and the door slid open. George stuck his head out at "_Take 'em to the chorus!_" and started reaching for a towel. That's the moment he noticed her, and her presence startled him. His shocked nerves made him jump and that caused him to flash a bit of hip in her direction. "Izzie!" he cried, trying to cover up.

She lowered her eyes, showing her lust to the fuzzy blue bath mat. "Oh, come on. Nothing I haven't seen," she said, trying to act tired and bored, but not able to get those sinfully delicious thoughts out of her brain. She watched him climb over the lip of the shower floor, towel secured around his waist. His abdominals caught her eye. She hadn't noticed those before. "Are you working out more?" she found herself asking.

He froze in mid-step. "Yes. Why?"

Her mouth opened and the words almost spilled out: 'cause I'm suddenly hot for you again and all I wanna do is lock the door and pin you to the wall or the door or the floor and just break me off a piece of that.

She almost said it. _Thisclose_ to saying it, in fact. She didn't, though.

What she did say was, "You seem...healthier. Your whole..."

Arms. Chest. Upper body. Abs. _Abs. **Abs.**_

"...being," she finished.

He breathed again. "Thanks," he said, and then he walked out.

Izzie exhaled when she was alone, and hoped that deep breaths would put the beast down for a while.

The beast's slumber lasted all of the forty minutes it took to drive to the hospital. Then she was confronted by him intruding into her line-of-sight throughout the day. During rounds when he was whispering chart information in her ear. Him massaging her neck and shoulders at lunch like he did all the time. Brushing against her as they walked through a scrub room door just enough to give her a delectable shiver. And it wasn't like it was unprofessional or unwarranted or overly intimate. He was just being George, like he always was at work.

Except today, it was all too much. Too much fantasizing. Too much wanting. Too much hungering.

So when she made it home, she made a bee-line for his room. Stripped naked. Slipped in between his cool linen sheets. And waited for him to walk through the door. It felt like it was taking forever, which is why she'd had the time to ponder her favorite word to describe her longing. She knew he'd just gone into surgery before she'd left the hospital, and that he was planning to have dinner with his brothers afterward. But the wait wasn't cooling her off at all. Her beast had staying power.

The second George appeared in the doorway, Izzie commanded, "Take your shirt off, George."

George stepped out for a moment, then in again. He tried to make a joke. "Izzie, did we switch rooms again - "

She put a finger to her lips. "No. No talkie. Shirt. Off."

"Iz," he said. "Today's not a good - "

"Do not make me come over there, O'Malley," she growled, crawling out of the bedclothes and kneeling on her haunches.

George's eyes couldn't avoid her - and he really tried. "Your beast is awake again, isn't it?" His voice was squeaky, almost like he was panicked.

She caught his gaze grazing across her erect nipples, down past her navel, and toward that puff of blond hair just below her belly, and then returning to a spot somewhere not on her. She smirked at him for both his roguish and gentlemanly instincts. "Mm-hmm," she said. "And starving."

"How? How is that possible?" He checked to be sure that he'd closed the door, and lowered his voice to a gruff whisper. "We've had sex every night for the last three weeks."

Izzie shook her head. "No, we haven't. There was that Friday when you were stuck at the hospital."

"And you jumped me in the On-Call Room."

"Oh, yeah," Izzie said, suddenly remembering how, in the middle of a rather remarkable string of positions, he had suddenly contorted himself beneath and above her, all at once.

"With that visiting oncologist in the top bunk," George said, his hands shoved into his pockets. "I'm amazed he didn't wake up and bust us."

"Loud snorer, deep sleeper. And speaking of loud...and deep..." she said.

"Not to mention Meredith," he said, taking off his jacket, but not letting it leave his hands. "If you hadn't been sneaking into my room in the middle of the night before we - you know - she might actually be suspicious."

Silence. Izzie blinked at him. "Why are you not naked yet?"

"I'm not a machine, Izzie!" George fairly shouted, clamping a hand over his mouth.

"Look at you. Talk about me waking people up."

"I'm tired. Surgery did not - well, it wasn't good. And dinner with Jerry consisted of four or five words over the driest steak I've ever tried to choke down. So I want to go to sleep." He shook his head at her. "Remember sleep? I remember when you slept in my bed, not, you know, slept."

Izzie snorted. "If you don't want me here, fine. Sorry to put you out." She climbed out of the bed and snatched her undergarments from the floor.

George smoothed his face with his hands. "Izzie - "

She pulled her panties on, and then her tank top. "Forget it. I don't wanna stop you from - "

"Please, Izzie, don't get mad at me - "

"Why not, George?" Izzie asked. "You're kicking me out of your room. I came here to surprise you, to make you happy, so why shouldn't I get mad at you?"

"Because - because - " he stammered.

"Because what?"

"Because I couldn't get you out of my head today, okay?" George replied. "I could do it before. Last three weeks, last three months, I could. But now - " George blew out a breath. "I mean, today, anytime I was near you, or touched you, or brushed against you - I just wanted to stay there. Just - just for a moment longer." He walked to the bed and sat down on the edge. "Izzie, when we're together - the way you love me - I never dreamed that anyone would be able to do for me what you do for me. And now that I've had that, it's like - it's oxygen to me. And I can't do without it anymore. I simply can't. Especially after today."

Izzie sat next to him. "So why do you want me to go?"

"I don't want you to go," George said. He chuckled softly, sweetly. "I wanna sleep with you."

Izzie was giddy again. "That's what I'm wanting to hear," she said, diving under the covers again. "Pants. Now." She stripped off her tank top.

George sounded disappointed. "No, Iz..."

"What?"

"No sex," he said.

Izzie's eyes widened. "What?!"

"Not tonight. Just sleep."

Her jaw dropped. "WHAT?!"

He stood up and kicked off his shoes. "Sorry, but that's the deal."

"But don't you wanna..."

He unfastened his pants and stripped to his boxers, then lifted his shirt over his head. "Hold you in my arms? Yeah. Feel you breathe? Yeah. Know that you'll be there in the morning? Like nothing else ever." He slipped into the bed and pressed his body into hers.

She had to admit as she felt his warmth and weight melding with hers that this was not an altogether unpleasant sensation. His arms wrapped around hers, and she felt goosebumps form when he tenderly kissed the nape of her neck. Even her beast wasn't as growly as she might have expected.

Although when she noticed George's lips lingering on the soft skin behind her ear, the beast did cause her to swivel a bit.

"What are you up to?" she asked.

"Nothing. Just - giving you another good night kiss."

She turned her body so she could get a better look at him. When she did, she noticed the energy in his eyes. And the weight straining against the front of his shorts. "You just wanted to sleep," she teased.

"Well, yeah. But biology being what it is, and physiology, and - uh - " When he ran out of excuses, he let his kiss do the talking.

It broke, and she grinned at him. "So, George...you wanna sleep now?" She rolled on top of him. "Or would you prefer, perhaps, bringing SexyBack..."

George's eyes widened. "Crap. How much did you hear?"

Izzie leaned down and just before she kissed him, she moaned, "Take me to the chorus!"

The End

* * *

_**Tom Also Sez:**_ _Hope that made y'all feel a little better._

_The lyrics to Bringing SexyBack came from a Justin Timberlake fansite...I earn nothing from that song, since I don't own it...please don't sue me for doing something to make my Kind Readers feel better..._

_A Justin Timberlake fansite...good gravy, the places I'll go for my fellow O'Stevens shippers... _


End file.
